After the East Bay Express ran a long feature in February about how the online review site, Yelp, was manipulating positive and negative reviews for paying advertisers, the company's CEO Jeremy Stoppleman responded, denying the accusations and criticizing the Express reporter for using too many anonymous sources.
Numerous other news outlets, including The Industry Standard, also followed up on the Yelp story after the Express ran the piece. Some stories cast Yelp in a positive light. Others, not so much.
Now Kathleen Richards, the Express reporter who wrote the piece, has a rebuttal to Stoppleman's claims that her reporting was shoddy. It's in the form of a follow-up piece, this time with no anonymous sources.
She writes about numerous Bay Area merchants who, on the record, say they've faced extortion from Yelp representatives. She even names the Yelp employees who made the nefarious demands.
There has been no response yet from Stoppleman on the official Yelp blog.
Comments
Finally everyone is learning how Yelp has victimized small local business people since it's inception. After years of Mr. Stoppleman telling the press that restaurants and merchants were to blame for the income damaging reviews, we learn that he and his staff were actually responsible for many of them, as well as manipulating the placement and removal of legitimate reviews for his own financial benefit. Yelp and Mr. Stoppleman should be investigated by the state attorney general. They should be forced to compensate the companies they have damaged financially, and removed from any position that might allow them to harm the reputations of any more hard working people and businesses in the future.
Does anyone know if you can legally request to have your business listing removed from Yelp's sight all together? Yes it is great to get your name out there but at the same time I dont like giving these people the right to corner you. You should be able to have the choice if they want to participate with their site.
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